


what is it they say about first impressions

by nysscientia



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - College/University, Card Games, Dancing, F/F, First Kiss, Fluff, Getting Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:41:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27143980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nysscientia/pseuds/nysscientia
Summary: “All right, I’m an asshole!” Beau says, throwing her hands up in defeat. “I’m an asshole who was mean to a cartoon unicorn of a person because she had done the advance reading and I hadn’t, and then I couldn’t think of a way to apologize that didn’t sound sarcastic so I never did, and every time I’ve peer reviewed her papers I’ve been really harsh for no reason and one time she ran into me in the hallway so I called her Ramona Flowers and she didn’t even get the reference. I’m a monster, and she probably thinks I don’t know her name.”“Possibly calling her Blue Girl has not helped,” Caleb says.“Yes, welcome to my 8am of shame,” Beau says. “Why are we talking about this right now?”Caleb clears his throat. “Ah, because. Veth is on her way. And she is bringing Lavorre.”Beau doesn't make the best first impression. Jester draws her own conclusions.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett
Comments: 2
Kudos: 63





	what is it they say about first impressions

**Author's Note:**

> Getting back into fic writing after a long time away! In the spirit of D&D, I created a chart for rolling up my own AU prompts. This one was Beau/Jester, college AU, enemies to lovers. So here is my college interpretation of 'enemies.'

Beau’s finally gotten her folklore essay out of her brain by working up a decent sweat on the dance floor when Fjord tries to start a _conversation_ , of all things.

On Thirsty Thursday.

They got to the bar super early to beat the crowd—but apparently on the last Thursday of midterms, everyone had the same idea, because the place is uncharacteristically packed at 8:00pm. Fjord and Caleb have managed to claim a table despite the crowd, but it’s shoved into a corner and the last empty seat is walled off by the two of them—so Beau hops onto the table before vaulting herself into the chair.

“What the fuck,” Caleb says, but amiably. Fjord, meanwhile, has thrown his hands up protectively over the inordinate number of drinks around them (Thursdays are two-for-ones until 10:00).

“You’re a nightmare,” Fjord calls over the crowd.

Beau grins at him and snags his second drink.

He rolls his eyes, but his expression’s too genial for it land.

“While we’re on the subject,” he says, like they’re in the middle of something, “Did you ever apologize to that girl in your morning class?”

“Blue Girl?” Beau asks.

“Not her name, but yeah.”

“It’s an 8am, Fjord. None of us need names,” Beau protests.

Fjord glances at Caleb and they exchange a Look, which is. Insulting.

“What?” Beau asks, gesturing between them. “What is this? Why is this happening?”

“That means she didn’t,” Caleb says to Fjord, and takes a long drag of his beer.

“Wait, what—why are you both so invested in how I’m handling folklore hell?”

“I’ve heard Professor Delan is extremely amenable,” Caleb protests, as though the teacher is the problem.

“It’s a 300-level that starts at 7:55; it wouldn’t matter if the professor was Vysoren herself,” Beau says, taking a long pull from Fjord’s spare drink. “Fucking class was the only way to meet my last literary credit and graduate on time.”

“We know,” Fjord says, and sips his now solitary whiskey coke through the tiny straw.

Okay, so Fjord has heard this rant a time or two before. Beau wheels to Caleb instead. “I didn’t even take the prereqs, did you know that? I had to get special permission for this nightmare. Why do bad things happen to mediocre people?”

“Because you’re double-majoring,” Caleb says flatly. “And we both know you’ll ace it, prerequisites or no, so I don’t know why you’re complaining.”

“ _Still_ complaining,” Fjord puts in.

“It’s the principle of the thing,” Beau answers, finishing the drink and slamming down the glass. “And also, now I’m out of whiskey. So that’s two reasons.”

“Well,” Fjord says abruptly, standing. “Sounds like we could use another round.”

He turns to find himself face-to-face with a wall of Yasha, back from outside or wherever.

“Why is Beau complaining?” she asks, sounding genuinely curious. Fjord steps aside as much as he can, just enough that Yasha can maneuver herself around and into his vacated seat.

“So that she will not have to make an apology,” Caleb says sagely, handing her his spare beer. They clink their glasses lightly, inaudible under the noise of the crowd.

“Who do you need to apologize to, Beau?” Yasha asks.

Before Beau can get out an answer, though, Caleb is saying, “Lavorre,” and Yasha nods like this means something to her.

Beau frowns. “Wait, you know Blue Girl too? How do you _all_ know her?”

“I model for the life drawing classes,” Fjord answers at the same time Yasha says, “She comes to weightlifting club sometimes.”

So that’s a lot of information to process at once.

“I’m sorry, I’m—hallucinating,” Beau says. She tries to down her drink before remembering it’s empty and winds up dumping ice cubes into her own face. “What did you just say?”

Which is how she learns that the Manic Pixie Loud Girl in her 8am is both an _art major_ and, apparently, a casual but extremely competent member of the campus lifting club.

She once _spotted for Yasha_ when Keg was out sick.

“She’s really quite sweet,” Yasha adds. “Why do you owe her an apology?”

“I—look, it’s an early class, it’s discussion-based, you can’t—” But there’s really no way around this. “I may have—interrupted her. A few times.”

“Oh, that’s not so—” Yasha starts, but Fjord interrupts her to say, “You asked her if she was ‘fucking kidding,’ is what I think you told me.”

Yasha’s eyes go round and her lips disappear the way they do when she’s trying not to react to something. Caleb takes another sip of his beer.

Beau feels more like she’s free-falling than she does when she’s actually falling. “I may have—”

“And when was this, again?” Fjord continues. “Was it in a private conversation, where she could politely correct you? Or was it in front of the entire class and the professor and everyone?”

“I—”

“And if I recall,” Fjord plows on, “this was on the first day of class.” He turns to Caleb, now, because he’s the worst. “Remind me, what is it they say about first impressions? You can always get a second chance at them? Is that it?”

“All right, I’m an asshole!” Beau says, throwing her hands up in defeat. “I’m an asshole who was mean to a cartoon unicorn of a person because she had done the advance reading and I hadn’t, and then I couldn’t think of a way to apologize that didn’t sound sarcastic so I never _did_ , and every time I’ve peer reviewed her papers I’ve been really harsh for no reason and one time she ran into me in the hallway so I called her Ramona Flowers and she _didn’t even get the reference_. I’m a monster, and she probably thinks I don’t know her name.”

“Possibly calling her Blue Girl has not helped,” Caleb says.

“Yes, welcome to my 8am of shame,” Beau says. “My 8am that I don’t have to think about again for over a week, because today is _midterm Thursday_. Why are we talking about this right now?”

Caleb clears his throat. “Ah, because. Veth is on her way. And she is bringing Lavorre.”

Beau’s life flashes before her eyes. “What?”

“They are friends,” he explains. “That is. How _I_ know her.”

So that’s it, then. Beau has made her bed, and Veth is bringing it along for her to lie in.

Doomed though she may be, her friends take pity on her in the last hours of her life as a halfway-respectable woman. The conversation moves on. Fjord finally gets another round of drinks, so this time Beau doesn’t have to steal. Yasha even drags Beau back out onto the dance floor, which is very un-Yasha of her.

Beau takes the opportunity to ask her a few shouted questions about Zuala, because Beau’s life may be over, but Yasha is still an angel who deserves way better than the pack of assholes she’s fallen in with.

Her angst is sort of mitigated by Yasha’s quiet smile as she explains the new things Zuala’s added to her Etsy store. She can’t really hear most of what Yasha’s saying, but Beau’s buzzed enough she probably wouldn’t focus on the details anyway. She’ll look it up later to see for herself.

Just when it seems like she might actually be able to get her mind off midterms and classmates who hate her and actually enjoy her night, though, Veth finally shows up. Beau spots her right after she enters the bar, beelining directly to Caleb and Fjord’s table. 

And as promised, she has Blue Girl in tow. 

They weave through the packed dance floor with stupid grace, Veth with practiced ease and Blue Girl—Jester, Beau corrects herself—and _Jester_ like she just assumes the crowd will part around her. The pair seem to take up three times as much space as they actually do, bouncing to the music and laughing so loudly Beau can almost hear them over the bumping bass.

“Beau,” Yasha says. “You stopped dancing.”

She turns, following Beau’s gaze, and spots the newcomers. “Oh! We should say hi.”

“Yeah,” Beau says. “Sure.” She reaches up to adjust her topknot, suddenly aware of the hair that’s slipped out and sticking to her neck.

“You look fine,” Yasha says, even though Beau didn’t ask, and she looks like she’s trying not to laugh for some reason as she hauls Beau back to the table.

Veth and Caleb are somehow sharing a seat and Jester has claimed the last chair, so Beau and Yasha stand.

“Hey, guys! Jester, I think you know Beau?” Fjord says as soon as they arrive, because he’s actually a bro deep down.

Beau sort of salutes, and Jester says “Yeah, hi!” and then Yasha asks her about a painting series she’s working on and it seems like maybe things will actually be okay. Veth grabs the next round of drinks and a soda for Jester, and somehow manages to snag more chairs on her way back from the bar. No one says anything about any classes, and they fall into, like, regular conversation.

Beau has been relaxed into what turns out to be a false sense of security when Jester pulls out a deck of cards from somewhere and announces, “My friend taught me this awesome drinking game!”

“With cards?” Fjord asks skeptically.

“Yes, with _cards_ , Fjord,” Veth says slowly, like she’s explaining to a child. “Don’t worry, they’re mostly just letters and numbers! Easy.”

Fjord narrows his eyes, and Caleb snorts into his beer, and just like that they’re playing cards at the bar.

“The goal is to get rid of all your cards. You’ll learn the rest as you go,” Jester says brightly, and starts to deal. It’s kind of hypnotic to watch, actually; she’s wearing about a thousand rings, and her hands are a little small but they’re, like, super graceful.

“So—” Fjord starts, and doesn’t get a syllable further before Jester snaps “Talking” and places an extra card on his hand. His eyes widen in horror.

And thus begins the most intense forty minutes of card-playing Beau has ever experienced. Apparently in this game you’re not allowed to talk, and you’re supposed to learn the rules by fucking up. Veth seems to already know how to play, and Caleb picks up the rules like he’s borderline psychic because of course he does, but Fjord and Yasha both look a little lost.

It’s kind of brutal, actually. Beau can’t figure this one out. Is Jester a little bit of a sadist? When Fjord gets yet another card—for not saying ‘have a nice day’ after playing a seven?—he looks chagrined the same way he did the first time he joined Beau for her morning workout. And Jester’s eyes are big and her brows are a little furrowed, like—oh. Like she didn’t realize they might not all be able to keep up. The same way Beau felt when she didn’t give Fjord enough time to warm up before they did interval training.

Okay, Beau thinks. This she can do.

She throws herself into the absolute worst round of cards anyone has ever played, deliberately breaking every rule they’ve encountered so far and trying whatever she can think of to discover more. By the time Veth declares “Mao” and discards her last card, Beau is holding a third of the deck—and has provided, she flatters herself to think, one hell of a bad example.

Fjord finishes second in the next round, and Jester smiles at Beau over her cards.

“It is 13 minutes until happy hour ends,” Caleb announces between hands, and Beau decides that if she owes everyone a round—which is probably the minimum, based on how badly she’s been playing—she wants to get everything before the prices crank back up.

She already knows Fjord and Caleb’s orders. Yasha wants the seasonal IPA, Veth the house whiskey; and Jester—“You’re not drinking, right?” Beau asks, waving at her Coke. “Want a refill, or what?”

Jester looks up from shuffling cards, dark-lipsticked mouth curling into a smirk. “Fried pickles.”

“Oh, you’re kidding me,” Beau says, because fried pickles are a crime—and then Jester’s eyes snap up to hers, and everything Beau’s ever said to Blue Girl flashes before her eyes and she wants to die.

“I mean, yeah, yes,” she backpedals. “Good. Fried pickles coming right up.”

Jester’s cackle follows her all the way up to the bar.

Beau fights her way through the crush of people also racing to beat the happy hour clock, and ignores the bartender’s disappointed expression when she orders six drinks and an appetizer. (She tips 30%, to make up for it.) There’s a second where she’s not sure how she’ll get all the glasses back to the table, but then she spots a dirty tray abandoned on the edge of the bar and loads it up, and everything’s cool.

When she gets back to the table and explains that there’ll be a wait on the pickles, Fjord laughs at her. Jester, though, just says, “That’s okay, that means there’s time for dancing!” and grabs Beau’s hand and leads her onto the dance floor.

Which. How many beautiful women are going to drag Beau around the bar tonight?

It’s kind of the first time that Beau has acknowledged head-on that Jester is beautiful, but—well. It doesn’t really need to be said. She’s got the alt girl thing going, with the blue hair, but she also has this kind of lightness around her (which in retrospect screams big art major energy). For Thirsty Thursday she’s rocking some kind of gauzy sheer pink shirt over an extremely strappy black bra-tank-top combo, and it’s doing amazing things for her back as she glides along the dance floor, and— _oh, fuck_ , Beau manages to think, as she realizes that Jester has a _tattoo_.

Not a small one, either. It’s a work of art, sprawled all along her back and curling around towards her chest.

Beau watches a little helplessly as Jester turns, rolling her hips with the music, and puts her hands on Beau’s shoulders. Beau is—some number of drinks in compared to Jester’s completely sober, but Jester is still loose and smooth, sliding against Beau, smile dancing across her lips.

It all feels… really fucking good.

So they dance together, pressing in just a little closer with every song change, while a voice in the way back of Beau’s head chants _I’m an idiot. Fuck. I am so stupid_.

But here’s the thing: this is not her fault. There is no way she could’ve known. Beau doesn’t get crushes on girls like Jester. She crushes on women like—like Avantika, the TA who will humiliate you in a keg stand because she knows you have a paper due the next day and she likes to laugh at hungover undergrads. Or like Yasha, before Beau found out she had a long-distance girlfriend and her terrifying death glare just meant ‘I’m shy.’

Beau dates… people who can experience her asshole behavior and give her back twice as good as they get. People who could throw her out a window if she ever hurt them. Not—not art majors that sparkle with an internal light that Beau will have to watch dim a little more every time she says something stupid until all she’s done is find another beautiful thing she can break.

A slow song comes on, and Jester doesn’t pull away, just lets her arms drape around Beau’s neck and keeps moving with the music.

It’s quiet enough, though, for Beau to finally ask, “Why are you dancing with me? Or even, you know, being in the same room with me?”

Jester’s eyebrow quirks up. “Because it’s fun?”

“Yeah, but I mean… I’ve been such a jerk to you,” Beau says. “I called your thesis the most baseless thing I’d read since all of Twitter.”

“In your defense, I wrote that essay five hours before class,” Jester replies.

Which is horrifying both because of the timing, and also because it was actually a pretty good essay.

“But I referenced Scott Pilgrim at you,” Beau protests.

Jester shrugs. “You get mean when you’re nervous. I mean, I didn’t want to say anything because I don’t want to embarrass you, but it’s actually kind of a really obvious tell.”

Beau’s really aware of her hands on Jester’s waist. “You think I was nervous? Every time I talked to you, all semester?”

“Weren’t you?” Jester asks, swaying to the music, her stomach brushing against Beau’s as she twists her hips. She smells like Veth’s car, a little bit, and vanilla and cinnamon and cigarette smoke from outside.

And okay, Beau may be stupid, but she catches up fast when she needs to.

“All right, Psych 101,” Beau says, using the noise of the bar as an excuse to drop her chin, say it right in Jester’s ear. “why was I so nervous?”

Jester laughs, but from this close Beau also sees her shiver a little.

“Well, obviously, Beau,” she says, putting on a ridiculously serious voice, “I am very intimidating.”

“You’re a menace,” Beau says, absolutely meaning it, and ducks down to catch Jester’s eyes. 

“No _fucking_ kidding,” Jester answers pointedly—and uses Beau’s gobsmacked pause as her opportunity to pounce.

She slides her hands up to Beau’s jaw and pulls her down into a kiss, lips soft and strawberry-flavored and insistent in a way that buzzes through Beau’s whole body. If Beau had allowed herself to think about this, to guess what kissing Jester would be like, she probably would’ve imagined sort of hazy and dreamy—the kind of thing that gets a pastel filter and a lot of lens flare in indie flicks. But Jester is _present_ , intense, angling Beau where she wants her, thumbs pressed right behind Beau’s ears in a way that feels both aggressive and tender. She pulls back a little to suck on Beau’s lower lip, then gives it a little nip before turning to press a kiss to the corner of her mouth, to a spot under her chin.

It’s kind of a lot for the dance floor; but also Jester’s canines are kind of sharp, and Beau has lost track of the bar’s entire existence, hearing and and tasting and feeling nothing but Jester—the swell of her breasts and stomach along Beau’s front, the sugary bite of chapstick and Coke on her lips. 

Jester pauses with her mouth right at the hinge of Beau’s jaw, lips dangerously close to her ear, and makes this delicate, breathy sound. Beau has to half-imagine it over the throbbing bass, but she still feels it swoop low in her belly.

“Still nervous?” Jester murmurs into Beau’s ear. She sounds a little shaken; Beau goes almost dizzy with it.

“I think I’ll survive,” she manages, and slides a finger under one of Jester’s tank top straps, just barely grazing skin. “You?”

This time, Jester doesn’t even try to hide a shudder, eyes fluttering closed at the contact. She grinds a little against Beau, just enough to make her legs feel wobbly, before she takes a step back.

“Still a menace,” Jester answers, teasing, and Beau laughs. Which is when some frat boy bumps into them both, spilling half his beer on Beau’s shoes—and that’s as good a cue as any to make their exit.

Fjord and Yasha whistle and whoop as Beau and Jester return to the table. Jester looks delighted and she’s still holding Beau’s hand, so Beau decides to roll with it.

Veth, though, makes a surprised face like she didn’t even notice them, which is. Weird. They weren’t being subtle.

“What’s with you?” Beau asks.

“She has eaten Jester’s pickles,” Caleb answers with perfect deadpan, and the group erupts into shouts and laughter.


End file.
